November 17, 2011

Last night I did not wash my face.

All month I've been doing a personal better skin challenge. I've been washing my face dutifully before bed each night like some kind of responsible adult in the hopes that my skin would return the favor by looking like dewy charming adult skin and not patchy teenage zombie skin. It's not in my favor that I am pale and freckled, which would be charming and porcelain if it didn't also show every mark and scrape and blemish that has ever existed like a time line of terror that reads: I TOUCH MY FACE SOMETIMES OK MORE THAN I WANT TO ADMIT and ps I don't really wash it, maybe sometimes.

Part and parcel to my gentle daily face-a-washing I have absolutely forbidden myself from touching my face in any fashion, of both the unconscious thinking and ok I'll say it, pimple popping varieties. It's a terrible habit, it's bad for your face, and I want to stop. I've made great strides in this department and have rarely had to wear the mittens of shame for tens of minutes.

If you're really bad they make you wear them to the grocery store.

I embarked on this month-long quest to treat my face with some extra tender loving care and see if it can find it deep in its heart to love me back. I think I might have to take it on Maury. The results are in: You said you loved me? THAT'S A LIE.

Today marks day 15, the halfway point between the beginning and the end OF THE WORLD, or November, and the reports coming in from my face scientists (eyeballs) are inconclusive. On the one hand, it is no worse that it has been in the past. I look passable, not horrific, with a few mild blemishes that a stranger would probably never notice but that bug me all the same. On the other hand there isn't any considerable improvement over what it was before. Homeostasis?

Which brings me back 'round to our beginning. Last night I did not wash my face. After a terribly terrible day I was curled up on the couch under a blanket and I said to my face, "NO, FACE! I will not wash you tonight. You look the same as you always do. SHUT UP I'M SLEEPING." My face, in turn, said nothing. It's like that sometimes.

I'm not really quite ready to throw in the towel yet, per say, but I'll admit to being downtrodden about project nice face: lucky people how you get your face so nice. BUT– I'm going to keep going. Tonight before bed I will plod into the bathroom and carefully rinse away all evidence of the day's horrors with this delightful soap! (It really is delightful, I am not displeased with this soap.) and very occasionally topping with this expensive cream that seems to be the only thing that actually helps, that I'm almost out of. No need to panic but it's okay to cry.

There's always the off chance that it hasn't been long enough for my skin to adjust to the new routine and it is rioting accordingly in a last ditch effort to occupy my face with sadness and provide false readings of operation nice face's success rate. Skin is temperamental like toddlers and dogs and daylight savings time. Maybe, just maybe, by the end of the month it will call me up and say, "Why thank you jamie for taking such nice care of me. I'm going to stop looking stupid now." But probably not.
Hey. It's worth a try.